The Hand in the Dark
"It seems to me that you've been here before," said Caldew.
"I always come here when I have an expedition in hand," was the
response.
Caldew wondered whether his companion's expedition was connected with
the Heredith mystery, but before he could frame the question the waiter
returned with a bottle of wine, and shortly afterwards the dinner
appeared. It was not until the meal was concluded that Colwyn broached
the subject which was uppermost in his guest's thoughts by asking him if
he had met with any success in his search for Nepcote.
"We are still looking for him," was Caldew's guarded reply, as he
accepted a cigar from his companion's case.
"In Islington, for instance?" The light Colwyn held to his own cigar
revealed the smile on his lips.
Caldew was so surprised at this shrewd guess that his match slipped from
his fingers.
"What makes you think we are looking for Nepcote in Islington?" he
demanded.
"I am not unacquainted with the ingenious methods of Scotland Yard," was
the reply. "I can see Merrington working it out with a scale map of
London to help him. He is convinced that Nepcote is still in London
without a penny in his pockets. Merrington asks himself what Nepcote is
likely to do in such circumstances? Borrow from his friends or attempt
to cash a cheque? We will guard against that by watching his clubs and
his bank. Raise funds on the necklace--if he has it? Merrington knows
how to stop that by warning the pawn-brokers and jewellers. When he has
done so he has the satisfaction of feeling that his man is cut off from
supplies, wandering penniless in stony-hearted London, as helpless as a
babe in the wood. Where will he hide? He is a West End man, knowing
little of London outside of Piccadilly, so the chances are that he will
not get very far, and that his wanderings will end in surrender or
starvation. But Scotland Yard cannot wait for him to surrender, and
Merrington, with an imagination stimulated by the necessity of finding
him, decides in favour of Islington--the so-called Merry Islington of
obsequious London chroniclers, though, so far as my personal observation
goes, its inhabitants are merry only when in liquor. Islington is
congested, Islington contains criminals, and Islington is an ideal
hiding-place. Therefore, says Merrington, let us seek our man there."
"Oh, come, Mr. Colwyn, you don't put me off like that. Somebody must
have told you that I was out there to-day."
"I saw you myself. As a matter of fact, I have been looking for Nepcote
in that part of London--in an area between Farringdon Street and
Euston."
"Why there in particular? London is a wide field."
"I have endeavoured to narrow it by considering the possibilities. The
suburbs are unsafe, and so is the West End; the City affords no shelter
for a fugitive. There remain the poorer congested areas, the docks, and
the East End. But that does not help us very much, because there is
still a vast field left. What narrowed it considerably for me is my
strong belief, taking all the circumstances into consideration, that
Nepcote has not got very far from where we last saw him. What finally
determined me to select Islington as a starting point for my search was
that strange law of human gravitation which impels a fugitive to seek a
criminal quarter for shelter. A hunted man seems to develop a keen scent
for those who, like himself, are outside the law. Islington, as you are
aware, has a large percentage of criminals in its population. At any
rate, I am looking for Nepcote in Islington."
"Although I could pick flaws in your theory, I am bound to say that you
are right," said Caldew. "Nepcote is hiding in Islington. At least, we
think so," he cautiously added.
"Good! How did you find out?"
Caldew gave his companion particulars of the pawnbroker's visit to
Scotland Yard that morning.
"I have been looking for Mr. Hobbs' marked shilling in the small shops
between King's Cross and Upper Street all the afternoon," he said. "I
traced it quite by accident after I had decided to give up the attempt.
One of the uniformed men at the _Angel_ happened to tell me, as a joke,
about a coffeestall keeper who had gone to him in a fury that morning
about a chance customer, who, in his own words, had diddled him for a
bob overnight. He showed the policeman a shilling he had taken from the
man, and was under the impression that it was a bad one because it was
marked with a cross. The policeman put the coin in his pocket and gave
the man another one to get rid of him. I obtained the shilling from him,
and went to see the coffeestall keeper. His description of the man who
passed it resembled Nepcote, and he added the information that the
customer, after changing the shilling for a cup of coffee, had asked him
where he could get a bed. The coffeestall keeper directed him to a cheap
lodging-house near the _Angel_. I went to his lodging-house, and
ascertained that a man answering to the description had slept there last
night, and on leaving this morning said that he would return there for a
bed to-night. I have a policeman watching the place, and I am going out
there shortly to see this chap--if he comes back. Do you care to go with
me?"
"I'll go with pleasure," said Colwyn, who had listened to this story
with close attention.
"Then we'd better be getting along. But, I say, don't mention this to
Merrington if anything goes wrong and I don't pull it off. The old man
has his knife into me over this case, and my life wouldn't be worth
living if Nepcote slipped through our fingers again. I want to try and
surprise him, and let him see that there are other men at Scotland Yard
besides himself."
"I don't think you have much to fear from Merrington," said Colwyn,
laughing outright. "He is in a chastened mood at present. But you can
rely on my discretion, and I hope you will get your man."
"I believe I shall," returned Caldew in a confident tone. "Shall we make
a start?"
Colwyn paid the bill, and they set out through the darkened streets,
upon which a light autumn fog was descending. The Kingsway underground
tramway carried them to the _Angel_, where they got off. Caldew threaded
his way through the unwashed population of that centre, and turned into
a side street where a swarm of draggle-tailed women were chaffering for
decaying greens heaped on costers' stalls in the middle of the road. He
turned again into a narrower street running off this street market, and
stopped when he got to the end of it. He nudged his companion, and
pointed to a sign of "Good Beds," visible beneath a flare in a doorway
opposite.
"That's the place," he said.
A policeman came up to them, looming out of the fog as suddenly as a
spectre, and nodded to Caldew.
"Nothing doing," he briefly announced. "I've watched the place ever
since, but he hasn't been in."
"All right," said Caldew. "You can leave it to me now. I shan't need you
any longer. Good night!"
"Good night, and good night to you, Mr. Colwyn," the policeman
responded, turning with a smile to the private detective. "I didn't
recognize you at first because of the fog. I didn't know you were in
this job."
"And I hope that you won't mention it, now that you do know," interposed
Caldew hastily.
"Not me. I'm not one of the talking sort." The policeman nodded again in
a friendly fashion, and disappeared down the side street.
The two detectives stood there, watching, screened from passing
observation in the deep doorway of an empty shop. The flare which swung
in the doorway opposite permitted them to take stock of everybody who
entered the lodging-house in quest of a bed. By its light they could
even decipher beneath the large sign of "Good Beds, Eightpence," a
smaller sign which added, "Or Two Persons, a Shilling," which, by its
careful wording, seemed to hint that those entranced in Love's young
dream might seek the seclusion of the bowers within unhindered by
awkward questions of conventional morality, and, by its triumphant
vindication of the time-worn sentiment that love conquers all, tended to
reassure democracy that the difference between West End hotels and
Islington lodging-houses was one of price only.
But the visitors to the lodging-house that night suggested thraldom to
less romantic tyrants than Cupid. Drink, disease and want were the
masters of the ill-favoured men who shambled within at intervals,
thrusting the price of a bed through a pigeon-hole at the entrance,
receiving a dirty ticket in exchange. These transactions, and the faces
of the frowzy lodgers were clearly visible to the watchers across the
road, but none of the men resembled Nepcote. Shortly after ten o'clock
raindrops began to fall sluggishly through the fog, and, as if that were
the signal for closing, the figure of a man appeared in the
lodging-house doorway and proceeded to extinguish the flare.
"We had better go over," Caldew said.
They walked across the oozing road, and he accosted the man in the
doorway.
"You're closing early to-night," he observed.
The man desisted from his occupation to stare at them. He was an
ill-favoured specimen of an immortal soul, with a bloated face, a
pendulous stomach, and a week's growth of beard on his dirty chin. A
short black pipe was thrust upside down in his mouth, and his attire
consisted of a shirt open at the neck, a pair of trousers upheld by no
visible support, and a pair of old slippers. Apparently satisfied from
his prolonged inspection of the two visitors that they were not in
search of lodgings, he replied in a surly tone:
"What the hell's that to do with you? If you let us know when you're
coming we'll keep open all night--I don't think."
Caldew pushed past him without deigning to parley, and opened a door
adjoining the entrance pigeon-hole. A man was seated at the table
within, reckoning the night's takings by the light of a candle. It was
strange to see one so near the grave counting coppers with such avid
greed. His withered old face was long and yellow, and the prominent
cheekbones and fallen cheeks gave it a coffinlike shape. His sunken
little eyes were almost lost to view beneath bushy overhanging eyebrows,
and from his shrunken mouth a single black tusk protruded upward, as
though bent on reaching the tip of a long sharp nose. He started up from
his accounts in fright as the door was flung open, and thrust a hand in
a drawer near him, perhaps in quest of a weapon. Then he recognized
Caldew, and smiled the propitiatory smile of one who had reason to fear
the forces of authority.
"That chap you're after didn't turn up to-night," he mumbled.
"You're closing very early. He may come yet."
"Tain't no use if 'e do. 'E won't get in. All my reg'lars is in, and I
ain't going to waste light waiting for a chance eightpence. P'r'aps
you'd like to see the room where he slep' last night?"
Caldew nodded, and the lodging-house keeper, calling in the man they had
seen closing the door, directed him to show the gentlemen the single
room. The man lit a candle, and took the detectives upstairs to the top
of the house. He opened the door of a very small and filthy room, with
sloping ceiling and a broken window. A piece of dirty rag which had been
hung across the window flapped noisily as the rain beat through the
hole. The man held up the candle to enable the visitors to see the
apartment to the greatest advantage.
"We charge tuppence more for this bedroom because it's a single doss,"
he said, not without a touch of pride in his tone.
"And well worth the money," remarked Caldew.
"Look here, Mr. ---- Funnysides, I didn't bring you up here to listen to
no sarcastical remarks," retorted the man, with the sudden fury of a
heavy drinker. "If you've seen enough, you'd better clear out. I want to
get to bed."